AWS Security Credentials

When you interact with AWS, you specify your AWS security
credentials to verify who you are and whether you have permission to access the
resources that you are requesting. AWS uses the security credentials to authenticate
and
authorize your requests.

For example, if you want to download a specific file from an Amazon Simple Storage
Service (Amazon S3) bucket, your
credentials must allow that access. If your credentials aren't authorized to download
the file,
AWS denies your request.

Note

In some cases, you can make calls to AWS without security credentials, such as
downloading a file that is publicly shared in an Amazon S3 bucket.